reading Friedman, part I

Finally taking a crack at reading Edwin Friedman's Generation to Generation, and loving it!

Here are some of my favorite quotes, and their associating page numbers:

pp. 2-3 "What is vital to changing any kind of 'family' is not knowledge of technique or even of pathology but, rather, the capacity of the family leader to define his or her own goals and values while trying to maintain a nonanxious presence within the system." (CHURCH!!!!! Yay, I can do it!)

pg. 3 "There is an intrinsic relationship between our capacity to put families together and our ability to put ourselves together."

pg. 7 For pastors when counseling: "to whatever extent we can use our unique access to families to foster emotional healing, we are always at every moment preparing the way for other, more spiritual experiences to come later."

And also, apparently, I would like to be Edwin Friedman (though not necessarily Jewish--nothing against it, of course, but just that I'm not!)

Here is his section on "Author's Experience" on page 7 (exclamation points mine):

"The ideas and examples contained here are based on a quarter century of continuous experience in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area where I have served ever since I was ordained as both congregational rabbi and family therapist (!) with a broadly nonsectarian practice(!). This experience came to include the teaching (!) and supervising of family counselors (!) from all the helping professions, as well as members of the clergy (!) from all the major denominational groups. The latter function has included counseling clergy families (!) with respect to their own problems, and the "coaching" (!) of clergymen and clergywomen with regard to their congregations and their community of faith (!)."

Huh! Who knew! I want to be Friedman!

And, finally, to close this portion of quotes (and, forgive me, there may be many more posts of this regard), Friedman makes a funny!

On page 29, talking about couples who are, so to speak, "stuck together." "In the latter case, their marriage might last 50 years, but their kids are likely to dysfunction all over America...."

Ha!